Kick Me True North

We offer escape for people here.

We offer time away to get lost in their own thoughts,

to come in to unleash issues that they've got,

lose themselves for a period of time in the gym.

Practically every day I get a call about something,

somebody having trouble, financial trouble,

somebody having trouble with their marriage,

someone just needing...

..a shoulder to cry on,

somebody to listen to them.

It hasn't been easy

in kickboxing for me.

I went through a nasty divorce.

I've had businesses that has flopped

because of my one-track mind.

I've lost houses.

I've lost a lot.

It's a struggle to keep this tin hut going.

Go, go!

Push it.

Jab, jab, jab. Don't stop, don't stop.

Go for it, go for it.

Don't stop, don't stop.

Come again, keep going.

Keep it going.

Sharp, sharp, sharp.

Keep it going, keep it going.

Come on!

You hear the birds tweeting in the roof space

when you come in in the morning and the walls,

I don't know if you see the walls sometimes,

if you look at the walls, in a weird way they start to move and you start

to feel a wee bit disorientated.

I love that. It just adds to the character of the place.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I remember one day someone saying, "It's boiling in here, sir."

And two minutes later he pushed open these two doors and they creaked

as he opened them and I thought the building was going to come down.

And he opened the doors and he says, "There's your air conditioning!"

As the sun shone in, and it was even worse cos the sun was shining in then!

But, yeah, it's just an old, old gym where hard work happens.

It is a dump and, you know, Mr Murray knows it is a dump.

But it's what goes on inside that dump that actually changes the whole

thing about Prokick. That's what makes the huge support that Prokick has.

Like people just overlook the looks on the outside and it's what goes on

on the inside, you know, that really attracts people.

A lot of people probably wouldn't

get to know me that easily.

The reason why I got involved, I was very quiet, very timid as a child.

When I was eight, I was in the local school park and I got beat up.

I got beat up badly by five girls

and just was in the wrong uniform in the wrong park, wrong time.

My dad then was going through the local Belfast Telegraph,

seen classes, so he thought,

"Great, this will give her a bit of confidence."

Put me into it and then he realised that actually girls fight

and he asked me not to do it.

He says, "I don't want you doing that."

By this stage it was too late, I'd fallen in love with it.

I loved it. And then, from the age of nine, I stuck at it.

You've got a massive sacrifice on your social life and probably

relationships and so on.

If I had a family with kids,

I couldn't commit to the sport as much as I do now.

One sister has a family and kids and she tells me, you know,

you've got to think about this, you've got to think about family,

your time's ticking, you need to get out and meet people.

It's very hard. When are you going to meet someone?

When are you going to fit time in to have that relationship?

So I think I've just put it down to my head.

If I'm going to meet someone, and it's going to happen,

it's going to happen, there's no point going out looking for it.

People would say, "Ursula, God, you don't look like a kickboxer.

"You seem so gentle outside the ring.

"How can you turn into this fighter inside the ring?"

And I always say, "It's just within,

"it's just something that you feel, rather than a choice."

People think they want to fight, and they get a punch in the face and they don't come back.

Or they lose a fight and was never there, do you know what I mean?

When you have that strong desire to do it and you love it and you have that passion, like,

you just can't turn your back on it.

Picture what you're going to do.

She's going to want to power forward,

she's going to have to because you're so much taller.

Ursula has got the tenacity and the will to win.

You can keep her away.

'When Ursula first started to fight, she was very nervous and

'she was very insecure.'

If you want it bad enough, you keep going.

She's just got the desire, she wants to succeed.

CHEERING

I hurt everybody in my family, I wasn't a very nice person.

I put my mummy and daddy through hell.

I don't really know what triggered me, why I went so wrong,

but from a very early age I was off the rails.

CROWD CHANTS

Drinking every night of the week, partying, drugs, everything,

you name it. Just completely down the wrong road and the wrong crowd.

You've been here before a few times, Ursula.

My mummy was even saying to me, like, "Ursula,

"I didn't think you were going to make it."

She was always waiting on the rap at the door to say I was found dead or

something like that, you know,

because of the lifestyle I was living, it was just so rough.

BELL RINGS

Go, Ursula!

Good girl. Yes, Ursula.

For me, the turning point was getting into trouble in 2005.

Good, nice right arm.

I got arrested for GBH with intent.

I was just lying in the cell going like, "How did it come to this?"

I just thought, "I can't live like this no more, you know,

"I've got a son and I need to be there for him."

It's... It was terrible.

Somebody could have been dead.

You need to stay long and ram your jab right through her.

I actually turned to God at that point.

I said, "Get me out of here."

And I promised that, if He got me out of this trouble,

I would change my life.

Stay there! Stay there!

Stay there! Stay there!

Whey!

I love the fact that kickboxing has given me the discipline

to stay off the drink and give up the party life, you know.

It's a pity I learnt the hard way, but

to come through all that and to be sitting now as a world champion,

it's just unbelievable. It really is amazing.

Five years ago, I had lost my brother.

It was a sad time and a tough time for our family.

I started going to the gym just to make yourself feel

like you're coping better or something like that,

you know, take your mind off things.

So I started down in Prokick.

One of my friends trained at Prokick,

he had said to me the best thing that you could do, you know,

use kickboxing to clear your head and, you know,

take your mind off things.

And I did.

And it worked, it worked perfect.

Not that I was using kickboxing to like, direct anger or sadness

in any way, you know, on anybody else.

It wasn't anything like that.

If anything it was more, it was more just...

giving me a purpose.

It was actually just, um,

just around the time of my brother's passing

that I won my first European title.

I wish he could see me now, really, you know.

Especially the scale of the fights that I'm involved with,

you know, with Prokick.

I feel I do make him proud.

Rain, rain, fall in torrents.

Streams.

Fall fast and hard and wash me clean.

Swell the rivers, raise its flows, so it covers me and takes my woes.

Lightning, lightning, crackle and blind.

Strike the darkness from my mind.

Illuminate the path, so I can see the road to travel, so I'll be free.

As a human being, I need to know what I'm made of.

I need to know, you know, how I'm built.

I need to know how I react in the hardest of times

and in the best of times.

I have those extremes in me and I need to kind of work with them.

Even having to fight every six to eight weeks,

that's so good for me because it gives me, like, right, OK,

everything else around me I can't control and I can't, you know,

that's life. You can't control life.

It ebbs and it flows in its own terms,

and you just have to go with it so much

and that frustrates me, you know.

So this gives me that focus

and it gives me that kind of full stop that I need sometimes.

Samantha is a powerhouse...

..and she's just got fighting...

..desire inside.

It's burning.

She's got this quest where she just wants to fight.

and the thing about Samantha is - she loves to fight.

You come through that crowd and the cheering and the shouting

and the roaring and raaaah!

And you get into that ring and everything else fades away.

It's funny, you're never kind of more at peace.

You're never more perfectly, you know, beautifully in the moment.

Nothing else exists outside of those four corners.

One of the cranes of Belfast.

Inspiring, isn't it?

The strongest things in Belfast and we're training underneath it.

But it's a shame, sort of way, it's went now, you know?

It would be nice to see a bit of work back here.

Who knows?

Another Titanic could be built here.

Yeah, turn here, turn here.

Belfast is a tough city, really, isn't it?

You know, obviously we've been through hard times growing up here.

I always thought I had some, some boxing skills, you know,

when I was a kid growing up.

I grew up in a sort of working-class area, you almost needed to,

you know, where I came from or else you would be slapped to the bottom

of the pile very quickly, you know.

Oh, sorry!

Sorry.

We've known each other now for eight years or so, I think,

myself and Billy.

My partner's Billy's daughter, her name's Brooke,

and whenever myself and Brooke started to go out with each other

it was a wee bit strange. He's always been the coach, you know,

he's the coach first and foremost.

We call him Mr Murray or Sir, you know.

There's a strict sort of...

..there's a divide there, you know.

Familiarity breeds contempt -

I believe that -

and I think you have to keep... not a distance.

I mean, it's important to have the discipline in a gym

because, without discipline, you lose it.

People become familiar, they don't try as hard...

and they'll cross the line quicker.

Look, if he hurts you, don't cry.

-Don't show it.

-No pain.

-No pain.

Because he's my coach first and foremost and then it's Brooke's

dad at the same time, that was a strange one because he's, you know,

he's a tough guy, but he's a gentleman, you know.

He has this aura about him as a tough guy, but...

..once we got past the sort of first hurdle, he wasn't too bad, actually.

But, aye, it was scary for a while.

Keep going!

CHEERING

He's almost like a father figure to me now as well, you know.

I could speak to him about anything now, there's no,

there's no sort of barrier there as such.

He's always the coach first and foremost, he's always the coach,

but he's more than that to me now, you know.

To be successful in this sport you have to be selfish.

I have put kickboxing first to get as far as I've got, train hard,

get my head down and put the hours in that I need to do,

and that does mean you're not there for other family members

that need you to be there. And you do make a lot of sacrifices.

Like, I'm a single parent. Shane's 13 now and, you know,

like he has learning difficulties and it's such a struggle,

you know, sitting down getting his homework.

He needs my time and he doesn't always get it.

What's going to be first?

-Six.

-So that's going to be next, then?

It's a struggle, like, trying to get him home from school,

get the homework done, get dinner on.

You're flying out to train, it's quite stressful.

It's stressful enough training for a fight,

never mind having to deal with everything else.

And I am riddled with guilt for the decisions I've made and the choices

I've made, you know. It's terrible but I want to make it up to him.

That's the reason I'm retiring because, you know,

my coach did say, "Ursula, look, you can go professional."

But I know it's going to take another three,

four years and I don't have that much time left.

I need to start focusing now on Shane.

You know, I've done what I came to do and I don't need

to take it any further, you know.

Shane's important now and now it's time to put him first.

-Does that feel all right?

-Spot on.

Spread the fingers out again.

People always think it's a male dominated sport, it's for men only,

where there's quite a lot of females that do do it.

Mr Murray gives us total respect.

We do the same training as the men do and if someone's flipping a tyre

at 100kg, the woman's flipping a tyre at 100kg.

Or if you're sparring, you're sparring men, you're sparring women.

So you're treated exactly 100% fair.

And we don't expect to be treated any different,

any of the female fighters. We want to be treated equally.

The last fight of the night...

People used to look at you funny whenever you told them you did martial arts,

or you fought or whatever. It wasn't accepted that much.

I suppose my own father is a massive prime example,

he doesn't believe women should fight.

He's never seen me fight in his life.

He's never been to any competition or tournament.

Here we go, round one of five.

Sometimes I think, "Yeah, he's missing out massively.

"He's missed out on a massive part of my life."

And one of my coaches didn't believe that I'd actually told him I fought because he never came,

so he lifted the phone one day and asked him and his answer back was,

"There's enough people watching her!"

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Go on, Cathy! Go on, Cathy!

I don't like two women standing toe for toe

with blood coming out of their face.

Saying that, I'm in the corner with my fighters,

which I get emotionally charged

and I'm passionate about my fighters and

I'm passionate about my fighters' desire to win,

as much as mine as a coach to have success for them.

I've seen me standing in the corners shouting, "Hit her harder!

"Punch her in the face!"

Samantha's preparation was poor for the last fight.

She took it just a little bit lax and she didn't really feel

that the girl was a threat...

..and she was grossly overweight.

She lost the fight

and she took a pretty badly.

She took it badly because she knew fine rightly that she only lost it

because of herself.

She wasn't being honest with herself,

she wasn't being honest with me.

It really has actually been one of the most difficult years

for me in a long time.

I had so much going on personally,

I had a lot of old demons,

that I thought that I had really put to bed,

came surging back again

and I was sort of struggling personally and emotionally

with some of that stuff.

I shouldn't have been in the ring.

I believe that...

That I'm weak.

The training and the fighting and the struggling to understand

my own strength comes from that genuine

fear of my own weakness and belief in my own weakness,

and inadequacy and sense of myself as a failure.

And there are moments and you think, "I can't do this, I can't,

"I can't do this.

"I don't want to do this. I can't do it."

And then...

there's another voice and it's just like...

"Well, then, who are you if you don't?"

The first thing Samantha asked me, "Please can I defend my title?"

Well, she needed time.

She needed a good six months to get herself into the best shape

ever in her life.

She was maybe 11, 12 kilos overweight.

That's a lot.

Samantha Robb!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I worked with her

solely for three times a day for a week

and in six days we took nearly four kilos off.

Within the last three weeks she's really,

she's really worked hard -

the way she should have worked six months ago.

She weighs in at 66.5.

APPLAUSE

I don't know which way this fight's going to go.

Is Samantha going to lose?

What's going to happen if she loses the fight?

If she loses the fight, it could really throw her over the edge.

BELL RINGS

30 seconds left!

Come on! Come on!

My brother, whenever I lost him, I lost him in Australia.

And it was an accident at work,

so it was just within the construction industry,

it was just an accident.

As I say, it was fatal.

I want to go out and go to the factory...

that's where he lost his life, you know, in the factory.

It was a mishap with one of the machines.

I don't want to believe someone's word, you know.

I've worked in construction a long time and I want to see for myself,

you know...how did it happen? Did it happen?

You know, and just sort of see it for myself rather than just always

sort of being told, "Your brother had an accident,

"he lost his life and here's his body, so bury him."

That photo was whenever he was back here for his holiday,

just before he went back to Australia for the sort of last three weeks of his life.

And there's another couple there, just of me and my brother

when we were in Sydney when I was over for a holiday, you know,

just together and hugging and stuff.

You know, that's the sort of memories that I like to have.

You know, just ones that make me smile.

Go, go, go!

The judges in their wisdom have decided that the winner...

..and still champion is in the red corner!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Miss Samantha Robb!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A fighter, when they fight, they see a tunnel vision

and all they see is the fighter in front...

..where I've got a bigger perspective from the outside

and I can see more, and a good fighter is one that listens.

And I try to get all of our fighters, including Ursula,

to try and think more.

Ursula, who's going to be amazing?

-Me.

-Come on, get in the zone!

Tonight...

..in what appears to be her very last fight,

she's trying to make it World Title number three.

Ursula Agnew!

Come on, Ursula!

Come on!

Don't get back, you need to stay there.

'It's one thing being a fighter

'who goes forward and just throws punches,

'but a harder fighter to beat is an intelligent thinking,

'aggressive fighter.'

Ursula's got both.

She's aggressive and she's a good thinker

and a good listener in the ring,

and she reacts very fast.

That's an asset.

You have to angle off your chaser.

Control the centre of the ring.

Work from there.

If it doesn't work, then take a half step back,

move to the right or left, then re-engage.

You can do this.

Come on, get in the zone. You get in the zone.

Show her who's two-time World Champion.

BELL RINGS

Over.

-That's OK.

-Doctor, come in.

-She kicked you in the head.

-She never kicked me!

-She did.

-Are you OK?

-No way.

-No, stop, stop, stop.

Just relax. Just relax.

Just relax.

Relax. She just caught you cold.

She just caught you cold, she caught you cold.

That's OK. You're going to get up now

and you're going to wish her well.

-Yeah, I know.

-Come on, come on.

One doctor stay, please.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Nobody likes to lose.

You have to come back harder.

There's no other way.

There is no other way.

If you want it, if you want it, you have to go and get it.

I have heard sayings, you know, "You're only as sick as your secrets."

And when you have these shadow aspects of yourself

that you don't want people to know about,

that you don't express,

then they can really begin to dominate

and I think that that's what they did for me.

I think before I found Prokick I'd really been on that process and that

journey of, what do you really want in life, you know?

And what is holding you back from getting what you really want?

If somebody had told me ten years ago,

find out what you love doing and do it all the time,

that that was kind of the answer to a happy life,

then, my God, I would've been doing this kind of thing a lot earlier, you know.

There will come a day that I've said, "Do you know what?

"I've done what I wanted to do in kickboxing."

But when that day comes, it'll be because of a positive thing,

it'll be because I feel like I've achieved what I wanted to achieve

and I'm ready to move on and achieve other things in other areas.

It won't be because I quit.

Winner...

Well, there isn't one.

It's a draw! The judges couldn't separate them.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I just felt that it was time to move on from kickboxing, you know,

and I pushed myself for that last fight.

To be quite honest, I could have retired before that.

I spoke to Billy about a week after the fight,

I called in to see him and he said to me, "Ursula, I would never,

"ever hang up my boots like that."

He said, "It's about fighting her again."

I had a good bit of time to think about it and I went down and spoke

to Billy again and I just said to him,

"You know, I'm just going to retire."

And he just went, "OK."

And I was like, "Right."

You know. So that was it, really.

I haven't spoke to Billy since.

Er...

I really don't want to talk about Ursula.

I don't.

I really don't.

That's a sore subject for me.

She's not the only one that I've worked hard with,

got to a certain level and then she just didn't come back.

The door's always open.

If someone wants to come in,

I've never refused anyone to train in here.

I've never shunned anyone away.

I've got lots of regrets.

Regrets...

..about my family.

I was very selfish.

I was very selfish

when I was younger because I had a one-track mind.

All I was interested in was...was fighting.

And people suffer...

..along the way.

It's not easy when you're

striving because you want to become a champion,

you've got this one-track mind.

That you want to be the best.

It's very difficult. People...

people are hurt along the way.

It's hard.

I remember the first time I was backstage for my first world title.

I was the challenger

and I was current professional European champion at the time.

And I was backstage on my own, there was no-one with me.

You've time to think about everything.

Everything is going through your head.

Am I going to be able to do this?

All the doubts, all the negativity and the positives

start rushing through your head.

-CROWD:

-Here we go, here we go, here we go!

One of the things that really came to me is how

I got to this place, fighting for the championship of the world.

I reflected back to my school days, where I was beaten up.

And if it wasn't for that initial shock,

I mightn't have been in that place at that particular time.

My quest from wanting knowledge of martial arts,

I ended up in an amazing fight venue

and it was time to go to war.

I beat him from pillar to post.

I won the fight on the judges' cards

but, by the time the penalty points was taken off,

I lost the fight by a half point.

I let just not myself down,

but I let everyone that helped me to get to that stage down

and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

And because I didn't have a coach and a mentor

that I would see every single day...

I done a lot of mistakes in the fight.

25 years later,

as a fighter then turning into a trainer,

I miss not getting into the ring.

But it's not about me.

It's not about me, it's about me pushing them.

You have to be selfish.

It's all about you.

It's all about you and that's what I try to push.

It's all about my fighters.